The present invention generally relates to patient data aggregation and review. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods and systems providing a flowsheet including a miniature representation of a patient dataset with a navigation timeline.
A clinical or healthcare environment is a crowded, demanding environment that would benefit from organization and improved ease of use of imaging systems, data storage systems, and other equipment used in the healthcare environment. A healthcare environment, such as a hospital or clinic, encompasses a large array of professionals, patients, equipment and computerized information systems. Personnel in a healthcare facility must manage a plurality of patients, systems, and tasks to provide quality service to patients. Healthcare personnel may encounter many difficulties or obstacles in their workflow.
Healthcare practice has become centered around electronic data and records management. Healthcare environments, such as hospitals or clinics, include information systems, such as healthcare information systems (HIS), radiology information systems (RIS), clinical information systems (CIS), and cardiovascular information systems (CVIS), and storage systems, such as picture archiving and communication systems (PACS), library information systems (LIS), and electronic medical records (EMR). Information stored may include patient medical histories, imaging data, test results, diagnosis information, management information, and/or scheduling information, for example. The information for a particular information system may be centrally stored or divided at a plurality of locations. Healthcare practitioners may desire to access patient information or other information at various points in a healthcare workflow. For example, during an imaging scan of a patient, medical personnel may access patient information, such as a patient exam order, that are stored in a medical information system. Alternatively, medical personnel may enter new information, such as history, diagnostic, and/or treatment information, into a medical information system during an imaging scan.
Currently, relevant patient information for a patient's entire lifetime exists in a number of formats that include paper, folders and disparate information systems from a variety of vendors and a variety of healthcare providers. Current systems cannot aggregate this information effectively. Additionally, current systems cannot display this information at one time so that healthcare providers have the ability to interpret a patient's complete medical history when assessing and diagnosing illnesses. Providers are rarely able to see the full history of a patient. More commonly, providers have only the information that they have gathered or that they have received in response to questions asked of the patient in a clinical setting. Key decisions are made with the limited knowledge available to the provider at the point at which the provider is making a decision.